Many Young Adults Are Turning To Witchcraft As A Way To Rebel Against Their Conservative Christian Upbringings

Young adults in America are far less likely to identify themselves as “Christians” than previous generations of Americans, but that does not mean that they have given up on searching for spiritual meaning in their lives. According to Wikipedia, one very popular form of witchcraft known as Wicca has been growing at a rate of more than 100 percent annually in recent years, and this has been happening at a time when Christianity has been in decline in the United States. Of course other pagan and occult groups have been exploding in popularity as well, and as you will see below, one of the primary reasons for this is because many young adults are seeking ways to rebel against their conservative Christian upbringings.

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I have written much about how young adults in this country are far more politically liberal than their parents and grandparents, and this enormous cultural shift in values has a spiritual dimension to it as well.

A recent Barna Group study found that only 4 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 have a Biblical worldview.

Only 4 percent.

The shocking truth is that the values of most Millennials much more easily fit into pagan spirituality than they do into most evangelical Christian churches.

If you want to sleep around with as many people as possible, that is okay in witchcraft. If you want to take drugs and get high every day, that is okay in witchcraft. If you want to be a radical pro-abortion feminist, that is okay in witchcraft. If you want to be a gay transsexual exhibitionist, that is okay in witchcraft.

Essentially, one of the great draws of witchcraft is that nobody holds you accountable for anything and you can do so many of the things that the Bible commands you not to do.

So for those that wish to rebel against their conservative Christian upbringings, getting involved in witchcraft can seem quite natural…

Witchcraft in this context is a “counter spirituality to the religious conservatism that defined many [queer people’s] childhoods,” as game developer Aevee Bee puts it. The visual novel Bee co-created, We Know The Devil, explores what it means to embrace witchcraft through three queer teens who attend a Christian summer camp, where they spend a night in the woods awaiting the devil. “What [the protagonists] encounter in the woods they understand and perceive as the devil because that is what they have been taught to understand their desires, identity, and love as,” Bee says. By embracing the devil, the protagonists find liberation from their religious upbringings, just as someone might by realizing it’s acceptable to be queer.

Alex Mar is one prominent author that became deeply involved in the world of witchcraft, but she was not raised that way. In fact, Mar is very open about the fact that she was raised as a Christian…

I was born and raised in New York City, but my roots are more exotic: between my Cuban Catholic mother and my Greek Orthodox father, family religion involved the lushest, most high-drama strains of Christianity. The elaborate clerical robes, the incense and tiers of prayer candles, the stories of the martyrs cut into stained glass, the barely decipherable chants – as a child, these were embedded in my brain. To this day, despite my liberal feminist politics, I still imagine the world as overseen by a handsome, bearded young white man.

She says that once she learned “to think for myself”, her liberal political views took her away from the church, and those same political views eventually sparked a curiosity about witchcraft…

Once I was old enough to think for myself, I broke with the church on issues of sexuality, marriage, the right to choose and the concept of “sin”; I also couldn’t swallow the thin reasoning behind excluding women from the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox priesthoods. At the same time, however, I was haunted by the memory of high mass, the sense that there are mysteries in the universe. When I learned that there was a living, growing American witchcraft movement – one that is radically inclusive, that views women as equals to men, and in which God is just as likely to be female – I was instantly curious.

This is why what we feed our minds with is so vitally important.

Our public schools have become liberal indoctrination centers that are teaching our young people to adopt an anti-Christian way of viewing the world, and all of that propaganda is being backed up by the thousands upon thousands of anti-Christian entertainment that our young people are constantly consuming.

Dakota Hendrix, a non-binary trans witch based in New York—an identity Hendrix jokingly refers to as “goat femme,” describing their combination of body hair, a smoky eye, and talons for nails—says the practice of witchcraft is a way to take control in a world that can be both metaphysically and mortally threatening.

It’s a supernatural form of self-defense that Hendrix says includes amulets that fight off mis-gendering, rituals that provide protection when walking down the street, and paying honor to queer and trans ancestors who don’t have descendants of their own paying homage. Not to mention—since, Hendrix says, contemporary witchcraft is connected to social justice work—a hex or two on the NYPD for good measure.

But while the rituals are plentiful, the rules are not, and Hendrix says being a witch is all about choosing one’s own path: “Being a witch is being autonomous; that’s the whole point. That’s how we draw power. We are defying the patriarchy, we are defying the submissive norm.”

Allowing our children to immerse themselves in popular culture is doing far more harm than most of us originally realized.

Popular culture is trying to take the next generation away from Christianity, and it is imperative that we start to understand this. And actually, many of the “stars” that our young people idolize are actually into the occult themselves, and once in a while they even admit this openly…

“I’m really a witch,” rapper Azealia Banks quipped last January, shortly before all hell broke loose on her Twitter account.

Banks is known for her online rants. She tends to share fairly dense ideas, spontaneously spun out in punchy lines liberally interspersed with curse words. I don’t know a person on this earth who can agree with every one of them, but her opinions are smarter than she usually gets credit for.

Still, even by Banks’s standards, the witch thing was weird. It came out in the middle of a run about black Americans and their relationship to Christianity:

I wonder if most of the black American Christians in the US know WHY they are Christian. I wonder if they even consider for a SECOND that before their ancestors came to the Americas that they may have believed in something ELSE.

As a Christian, it deeply alarms me that we are losing an entire generation of Americans.

If we keep doing the same things that we have been doing, we will continue to get similar results. That is one of the reasons why I laid out a recipe for spiritual renewal in my latest book entitled “The Rapture Verdict“, and my hope is that the church establishment will embrace what watchmen such as myself are saying instead of fighting it.

If we continue on with business as usual, the evangelical church in America will continue to shrink and multitudes of our young people will continue to seek out other outlets for their spirituality.

At the same time that interest in witchcraft is growing, interest in Satanism is skyrocketing as well. I recently wrote about how the Satanic Temple has experienced a huge surge in membership since Donald Trump’s election victory in November, and at Clemson University students are reportedly going to hold a “lamb sacrifice” and a “Bible burning” to celebrate the opening of a new campus chapel…

The poster contains imagery associated with Satanism, like pentagrams and an illustration of the goat-headed Baphomet.

It goes on to state that a live lamb will be provided for sacrifice by “[their] friends” at the Clemson Collegiate Farm Bureau. A Bible-torching ceremony is listed as part of the proceedings, with a cash prize for the student who burns the most Bibles. Finally, attendees are invited partake in a pentagram completion event, where they will “help summon Baphomet to celebrate the new Clemson Chapel.”

There was a time when it would have been unthinkable to put up a poster like that in America, but unfortunately those days are long gone.

Christianity is on the decline in this nation, and witchcraft and Satanism are on the rise.

We desperately need a major spiritual renewal, so my hope is that the church in America will wake up soon.

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I could be wrong but , I am becoming more convinced by the day, that it is the Christians who started the evil of “liberalism”. How? By church leaders bowing to evil so they could grow their congregations and in effect, their coffers. The love that is preached today in churches is not the love that Christ preached. Jesus never, ever, told people their sin was ok, he never taught his disciples to embrace those who embraced evil, he taught them to shake the sand from their sandals as they left a city that rejected Jesus Christ. The churches have food banks where those who don’t want to work can go and get free food, thus, the churches assist the drug addict, the thief, the liar, the lazy in their sin. It is made clear in the bible, old and new testament, that we are to feed the needy, after they have been properly vetted. God is not a fool, but, mankind is.

I would very much say that one of the big reasons why so many of the youth are turning away from the churches and turning to witchcraft is because they are not being taught their spiritual authority in Christ.

The Bible PROMISES spiritual gifts (ref. I Corinthians 12:4-11) in which I’ve seen more than a few professing Christians deny. …is it any wonder that so many are being lured away by pagan counterfeits?

God has many great blessings and gifts ready to bestow upon those who love Him.

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Also Michael, I noticed in your article that Alex Mar seemed to actually be raised in the Catholic church — and not a legit Christian church.

Catholicism is its own separate religion; diametrically opposed to the Word Himself, Jesus Christ.

Had2SayIt

I am not a religious person for a lot of the reasons you stated. Great post (and true) by the way!

Rainman

And yet you still stay in that mud and dirt. You know what they are teaching is wrong and very unbiblical but yet you show up to be fed more. When will you leave? I was where you are and one day, I decided that the Bible in Phillipians tells us to ‘Work out your salvation with fear and trembling..” and I knew that when I die, the Pastor will definitely be writhing in the fire pit from all that he was teaching us was okay but God calls it sin. I got tired of the manipulation from the pulpit. I got tired of the worship that was no different from the discotheques of my youth – lights, sounds and all. I saw that reverence for God was no more. When I picked up my bible and saw that God NEVER changed the Sabbath Day to Sunday, nor did He change all foods from unclean to clean, or send his Son so that I can sin freely weely under ‘grace’…I knew we are all headed to that pit in a hand basket with trimmings that we freely put on it.

jay

Wow. It saddens me to read the comments that people have written below. Correct me if I am wrong but I’m guessing that most most of you are from the USA. I was born in the UK and was not brought up as a Christian. I became involved in the dark arts about 30 years ago as I am and always was an inquisitive individual. I have had some seriously terrifying experiences in the Occult and now realise, had I not called out to God when I did I would not be alive today. I know first hand that God is real. Do not base your experience of God on your experience with people. God will not be mocked. What a man sows, that will he also reap. God has not changes and he will NEVER condone sin.

It’s not just Conservative Christianity, either. It’s also in Judaism. I fell into Paganism for 6 years when I was 20 years old, and came to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was 26. I am now nearly 40 years old, and am still growing in my faith in Christ. I’ve discovered it’s the legalistic approach that is driving many people away from God, period, because the legalistic approach removes relationship with God. My husband, who was a Christian who fell into Paganism as well (when we first met, he was the one living this lifestyle; I was influenced because I was jaded with Judaism. Thankfully, he rededicated a month after my salvation), and I are focusing on raising our son with knowing how to grow in his salvation in Christ in relationship with Him along with following His ways out of that faithful connection with Him. It comes down to this, we need relationship with Jesus…but we also must follow God’s laws out of a love for Him, faithfully, to honor that relationship. One or the other leads us down very dark paths – much like the ones my husband and I took for a handful of years. But together, the law along with relationship (following the law out of a love for Christ to honor God), we’ve learned that this leads to a fruitful and growing connection with God.

Myke Mynah

Check out Jesus Life Together. They have a website by the same name. A large community of believers who love Jesus, want to build the Father’s House here, and who’ve pooled their gifts together to create a spirit blessed website where all resources are free. It is awesome!

Myke Mynah

We’re not religious. We just love Jesus and have forged an intimate relationship with Him. He has opened our eyes.

Pete Okuhira

It’s no wonder that Harry Potter series are so popular among elementary school children and teens and not mention young adults, geeks, and nerds. And JK Rowling’s newest work: “Fantastic Beast” was a hit movie. For parents out there, are you really that surprised? Well, you shouldn’t. Because that was one of early warnings to many Americans across the country.

dot

Mindy, liberalism went into the church in the 1800’s maybe even before that . its not the real believers bringing liberalism to church this thing is nothing new .Ecclesiastes 1:9 I would like to suggest a book called j.Gresham machen Christianity and liberalism its old but it might help.

About Michael Snyder

Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years. Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The Most Important News. Michael and his wife Meranda believe that a great shaking is coming, but that there will also be a great awakening in the midst of that shaking. For much more on what Michael believes, and to learn how you can become a Christian, please visit "The Most Important Thing" which is the most important page on this entire website. In addition, please visit Michael's Bookstore to see what Michael is personally recommending to his readers.

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